SEOUL — A high school teacher has been charged with illegally selling college entrance exam questions to a cram school, netting approximately 250 million won ($180,151) over four years, in a case that highlights deep-seated issues of corruption within the education sector.
According to Yonhap News Agency, this arrest is part of a larger investigation involving 69 individuals, with 24 teachers currently referred to the prosecution. These teachers, all based in Seoul, reportedly sold exam questions for between 100,000 won and 300,000 won each. This particular teacher, implicated in the largest of these transactions, allegedly breached the anti-graft act by selling crafted questions to a prominent private academy from 2019 to 2023.
The investigation further revealed that the accused had participated in a panel reviewing one of the state-administered mock tests last year. During this period, he developed 11 questions which he then sold to two private institutions. Despite his denials of wrongdoing, claiming no overlap between the mock test questions and those he sold, police assessments confirmed their similarities through expert evaluations.
This case exposes a significant collusion issue between the public and private educational sectors, raising questions about the integrity of academic standards and fairness in the country’s fiercely competitive education system.